Charles Martin Edwards (born 24 July 1945) is the former chairman of Manchester United, a position he held from 1980 until 2002. He now holds the position of honorary life president at the club and Director of Inview Technology Ltd.
Biography
Education
Edwards was born at St Mary's Services Hospital in Adlington, Cheshire, England. At 13, he failed the entrance exam for Stowe School, his parents' first choice, and went to Cokethorpe instead. He left in 1963 with six O levels. and started work in the family meat business, initially working as an assistant in shops and on meat counters. He later moved to head office in Miles Platting to work for quality control and sales departments of the manufacturing division, then in the sales office of the catering division. In 1973, he became retail/wholesale controller. Edwards was a director of Argyll Foods until November 1983.
Manchester United
He was elected to the Manchester United board in March 1970. He became chairman on 22 March 1980 following the sudden and unexpected death of his father Louis on 25 February, who had been chairman for the previous 15 years. After the Football Association voted to allow football clubs to have one paid director, Edwards became chief executive on 5 January 1982 and paid himself an annual salary of £30,000.
During the 1979–80 season when Edwards took over as chairman, United finished runners-up to Liverpool in the Football League First Division, but had not won the league title since 1967 and had not won a major trophy at all in three seasons of Dave Sexton's management. At the end of the 1980–81 season, United finished eighth in the league after seven successive wins at the end of the season. Manager Dave Sexton was looking set to be offered a new three-year contract, but the deal was never signed and Edwards sacked Sexton after four seasons without a trophy.
Edwards then began the hunt for a new manager. There was talk that he would appoint Lawrie McMenemy, who had guided Southampton to a shock win over United in the FA Cup final five years earlier, as successor to Dave Sexton. It was also rumoured that United were interested in recruiting Brian Clough, a league title winner and twice a European Cup winner with Nottingham Forest, but Edwards insisted that he would not be approaching Clough. He instead turned to Ron Atkinson, whose impressive West Bromwich Albion side had qualified for the UEFA Cup three times in four seasons with top-five league finishes, reaching the quarter-finals on one occasion. Atkinson insisted in his footballing biography published in 1999 that Edwards was the best chairman he worked for, and he accepted the offer, and soon after this appointment, Edwards made the funds available for Atkinson to bring in Albion's midfielder Bryan Robson for a national record fee of £1.5 million. This national record would remain unbroken by English clubs for six years, and Robson went on to be one of the club's greatest ever players.
Atkinson guided United to two FA Cup glories (the first in 1983 and the second in 1985) but in the 1985–86 season United faded away to finish fourth after a 10-match winning start to the league season, and speculation about his future as manager was mounting.
In 1983, Edwards had begun looking for younger colleagues to introduce to the club's board. Sir Matt Busby had been appointed president of the club and Michael Edelson was appointed to replace him on the board by Edwards, followed in June 1984 by the addition of club solicitor Maurice Watkins and club legend Bobby Charlton.
In the summer of 1986, Edwards generated £2.3 million (a record fee involving a British club, though Robson's record set in 1981 had yet to be broken by a British club) from the sale of striker Mark Hughes to Barcelona of Spain.